maegul (he/they)

A little bit of neuroscience and a little bit of computing

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Joined 2 years ago
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Cake day: January 19th, 2023

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  • maegul (he/they)@lemmy.mltoComics@lemmy.mlWacky 90s fads [SMBC]
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    5 months ago

    Hear hear!

    The whole thing about early internet nostalgia is definitely interesting and pertinent for the fediverse! While I think there’s something to the pre big-algorithmic-social internet, I think your point is very well made … there was plenty of trashiness too, and as you say, problematic homogeneity.

    Meanwhile there’s a lot of “let’s just get back to the original Internet” energy on the fediverse … and yea … I’ve felt for a while this was a doomed mindset. Not just because there’s really no going back, but because it almost certainly is rose tinted glasses, which becomes apparent once you start assessing its libertarian premises, and how they failed, critically (again, as you say!)





  • Not to claim equivalence or anything, but smartphone and the internet (ironic saying so here I know).

    I’m a xennial … old enough to remember living without all this and the middle time where computers were either games or just useful tools.

    For me, and I’m pretty sure many others, I’m pretty convinced it’s better that way.

    I’d really like to get away from these things, at least just to relearn older habits.


  • as people are losing more and more faith in academic research and science

    Counter argument: it’s happening with or without her and it’d be better to rationally highlight the issues rather than allow the uneducated to hijack the issue.

    IME, the biggest deflator of faith in science etc for laypeople are their friends who left academia telling their own stories aligned with Sabine’s general point.

    Broadly, I’d wager the erosion of faith in research is a much bigger picture and getting to the bottom of the causes is more important than getting precious about maintaining the status quo.


  • Sabine is the poster child for science populism. She got chewed out by academia for having mediocre research ideas and now she loves to claim that there’s a conspiracy to take funding from her favorite fringe fields and give it to the establishment.

    Gotta say you’ve got me sceptical.

    I don’t follow her closely and am no mega fan or anything. But it’s not like it’s uncommon for good people to get pushed out of academia for shitty reasons.

    Plus, I don’t think you need to conjure conspiracy theories before you start arguing that there are dominant dogmas, cultures, practices and even some sort of “establishment”. I’d wonder how many fields of science don’t have some internally recognised “establishment” and “counter-establishment” ideas.

    And I’m not sure I see the “poster child … populism” claim? Sure, she’s probably popular, but for my money she does a decent job of YouTube science. Not sure she’s a household name or all over tv or anything.

    Got any more substantive links/sources about her being mediocre or conspiratorial?





  • EDIT: I’m agreeing with you here. My tone was probably confusingly aggressive. I just meant to add the idea that managers wouldn’t even know if WFH was good or bad let alone know whether you should keep your full pay.

    How about we decide on what doing the job actually is, in a way that can reasonably be measured, and then see if we can do it better from home or the office?!

    I’ve always felt that the elephant in the room on this is that remote work highlights the incompetence of management. And so instead of embracing the notion that remote work can work well provided the work force is well orchestrated, they’ve embraced fear mongering around uncontrolled labour.



  • I’ve read plenty of books digitally. And it’s fine and convenient. But there’s something fundamentally missing. Each time I’ve finished a digital book I’ve had the urge to buy a physical copy. To have it on my shelf as a constant reminder … something I can go back to with the ease of moving into a neighbouring room.

    It’s the big elephant in the room with modern tech IMO … it’s big obvious failure … that it’s all stuck in little screens. Look at the desktop computer … replacing a whole desk with … a single screen (sure things have gotten bigger now, but still, desks and whiteboards and pin boards can be quite large too).

    I’m in a new office and there isn’t a single piece of useful information on the walls. No whiteboards or posters or pinboards or anything. So much is hidden in the computer where mostly no one sees it but where we are all supposed to consult and update it like a shitty ritual that no one believes in. And don’t get me wrong, I’m “pro-computer” as a knowledge work tool. It’s just we’ve bought into lies and the dumb promise that having all of the Google or Microsoft things will just make us productive provided “we learn to use it properly” (where not enough ever do, and things change regularly enough that there probably isn’t a point anyway).



  • As a nerd, I don’t like the end of the article where she says we need to get revenge on the nerds.

    I hear you, as many would I think. But realistically, I think calling tech culture into question, even beyond its manifestation in the psychotic tech CEO types, is worth while. It’s really had a dominant run both materially and culturally (a revenge as many would see it), and I think it’s worthwhile questioning the value of a lot of it, in a way I don’t think many nerds and tech people are capable of (sadly IMO).

    There may be an inclination to separate the capitalism and nerdy parts. But as an industry/profession/whatever that generally tends to care a lot about itself in various ways … I think tech is disturbingly uninterested in caring about the quality of its profession beyond the bike shedding stuff let alone acting on it in any collective way. There are reasons for this, but given the dominance tech now has in the world, pushing back in the culture wholesale is justified I think.


  • I hear you and essentially don’t disagree. But I feel like this might lean a tad toward gaslighting.

    • Plenty of people are fine communicators when it comes to genuine collaborative work but still find the “game” of job applications very difficult or impossible.
    • Being left alone with a customer is not a thing at all for many roles.
    • Embracing diversity in abilities and doing so transparently is a thing that can be valuable for both companies and humanity. Presuming everyone can do all the things is, IMO/IME, damaging. It leads to cutting out people who have something valuable to offer. But also leads to not recognising when people are properly bad at something despite the fact that they really shouldn’t be given their seniority and role.

    In the end, a job application/interview is not like the job at all (whether necessarily or not). That there are people in the world who would be disproportionately good at the job but bad the application seems to me an empirical fact given the diversity of humanity. And recognising this seems important and valuable in general but especially for those trying to understand their relationship to the system.